Scottish Enterprise is working with businesses to help downturn response

Scottish Enterprise has given more details of how it is working with companies across Scotland to help them meet the challenges of the economic downturn.

The organisation has outlined how it has directed its resources, as part of the Scottish Government’s economic recovery plan, to ensure that its business customers are being offered the right type of support to help them through any difficulties.

It follows the Scottish Government’s announcement yesterday to bring forward £5 million of funding in 2008/09 to accelerate development of some of Scottish Enterprise’s key infrastructure projects, including the SECC Arena.

Jack Perry, chief executive of Scottish Enterprise said: “The uncertainty in the economic climate is having a major impact on businesses across all sectors in Scotland.

“Waiting for the storm to pass is simply just not an option. We are working with our business customers to help them reduce costs, improve processes, increase efficiencies, develop new products and look at opportunities to target new markets domestically and internationally.

“Scottish Enterprise is working with companies to help them respond to the short-term challenges of the downturn, while trying to ensure they are in the best position possible to respond when markets pick up again. All of this activity aims to make a real contribution the Scottish Government’s economic recovery plan.”

This includes:

• Allocating an additional £5 million to help cope with an increase in demand for equity risk capital from its Scottish Venture and Seed Funds, which has risen to record levels in recent months as companies seek alternative sources of finance in the current economic climate
• Business reviews with all of Scottish Enterprise’s 2,000 account managed companies to review current business and operating plans. These will result in action plans for each business to help them address their individual challenges.
• These company reviews include over 400 inward investors – companies headquartered outside Scotland - looking to preserve and build on the 150,000 jobs they provide. While the emphasis will be on maintaining Scottish operations there are, and will continue to be, opportunities to support inward investors to grow their business in Scotland.  
• Increasing the flexibility of the Research and Development support grant to enable R&D projects that may be under threat to continue, as well as ensuring Scotland remains an attractive location for new R&D projects during the downturn.  
• Doubling the number of projects the Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service can support and helping companies to improve productivity and cost-efficiency. Action is also being taken to improve efficiency in other industries, through a series of free ‘Resource Efficiency Reviews’.
• Increasing Scottish Development International activity to help more companies take advantage of the weak pound and move into new markets overseas.  SDI has also rescheduled its payment terms for its support to help companies to "sell now: pay later". This will mean companies can participate on the Scottish pavilions at major trade shows and pay for the vast majority of the costs of participation up to six months later.

In line with the Scottish Government and other public sector organisations, Scottish Enterprise is also working to get its average payment time for invoices down to ten days by early December from a current average payment time for invoices of 18 days. Invoices paid by Scottish Enterprise amount to approximately £20 million per month, with nearly 80 per cent of Scottish Enterprise’s contracted spend going to Scottish based suppliers